ARMOUR. 



ARMOUR. 



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not be pursued to their fastneeses by his troope when clod in ringed 

 timi^. UK] b therefore commanded them to use their ancient leather 

 uiU, which would not impede their activity. (Ingulfus, foL 68. Job. 

 Sarisb. ' De Nugis (.'urialium,' lik ri. c. vi. p. 185.) 



The Saxon artiats, it appear*, made no distinction between the 

 cyneheolm, or royal helmet, and the crown. The monarch in depict.-*! 

 by them, in hi* court and in the field of battle, with the ame kind of 

 head-covering, even when every other port of his dress is marked with 

 decisive variation ; Imt ii]>on the figure of Edward the Confessor, in 

 hu great neal, the diadem i- evidently put on a helmet. The casque 

 of toe nobility U usually |>ointd in the form of a cone, and made of 

 braas or tome other metal. In the two succeeding centuries it* shape 

 U the aame ; but it u ornamented with gold and precious stones, and 

 U improved by the addition of a small piece to protect the nose, called 

 a nasal. (See an illumination in the Cottonian MS., Tiberius, B. v.) 



Leg-guard* are decidedly mentioned by the early Saxon writers ; but 

 they uniformly appear to have been made of twisted pieces of woollen 

 cloth, coming from within the shoe, and wound round the legs to the 

 top of the calves, in imitation of the hay-bands used by their rude 



The shield still continued oval, and indeed until the Norman 

 conquest ; but it differed from tune to time greatly in dimensions, 

 especially in the 10th and llth centuries, in the drawings of which 

 tunes it appears of various sizes, from a magnitude sufficient to 

 cover the head and body, to a diameter not greater than a foot and a 

 half. This variation is further supported by historical testimony, for 

 we find mention made of " little shields," and " smaller shields. In 

 the will of .-KtheUtan, dated 1015, the shoulder-shield is included 

 among the legacies, and it is distinguished from the target. It was 

 probably of the larger sort, and received its appellation from being 

 usually slung upon the shoulder. 



When the Danes made their first appearance in England, Sir 

 Samuel Meyrick says, they seem to have had no other armour than a 

 broad collar which encircled their chest and the lower part of their 

 neck, or a small thorax of flat rings, with greaves, or rather shin-pieces, 

 of -tout leather. About Canute's time, the Anglo-Danes adopted a 

 new species of armour, which, he thinks, they probably derived from 

 their kinsmen, the Normans. This consisted of a tunic, with a hood 

 for the head and long sleeves, and what were afterwards called 

 chausses, that is, pantaloons, covering also the feet, all of which were 

 coated with perforated lounges of steel, called, from their resem- 

 blance to the meahe* of a net, macles, or mascles. They wore, too, a 

 helmet, or skullcap, in the shape of a curvilinear cone, having on its 

 apex a round knob, under which were ]>ainted the rays of a star. This 

 helmet hod a Urge broad nasal to protect the nose, and the hood was 

 drawn up over the mouth, and attached to it, so that the only exposed 

 parts were the eyes. The authority for these observations is the 

 manuscript in the British Museum commonly called Canute's Prayer- 

 book. Spears, swords, and battle-axes, or bipennes, were the ofli -n-h > 

 arms. The shields were either circular or lunated ; a law of Hacon, 

 who died in 963, directs that the shield should be of two boards ill 

 thickness, and painted red. 



Such had been the state of armour in Britain when William led his 

 army of Normans and Flemings to the victory at Hastings. 



From this period, the groat seals of our kings, those of the greater 

 barons, and monumental effigies, give the outline of the changes 

 which took place in the fashions of armour. The great seal of William 

 the Conqueror represents him on one side seated on a throne, upon 

 the other he is in a hauberk apparently of rings set edgewise, which 

 kind of armour had been used by the Anglo-Saxons. The Norman 

 body -armour represented in the Bayeux tapestry is of two kinds ; one 

 of rings or maacles, sewn flat on the vesture ; the other of leather. 

 The helmets an conical, and have the nasal. The ring-armour of the 

 Bayeux tapestry is a tunic descending below the knee, but divided 

 before and behind for the convenience of riding, so that the sides 

 hang down so as to resemble short trousers : " This," says Sir Samuel 

 Meyrick, " I take to be the haubergeon, as then are some few speci- 

 mens of the tunic or hauberk, and both being mentioned in the 

 Roman de Rou.' This opinion," be adds, * is further strengthened 



by a specimen of this curiously shaped armour existing on a monu- 

 ment in Ireland as late as the time of Edward III. It appears to have 

 been put on by first drawing it on the thighs, where it siU wide, and 

 then putting the arms into the sleeves, which hang loosely, reaching 

 not much below the elbow, as was the cane with the Saxon flat-ringed 

 tunic : the hood (Mr. Planch* prefers the term cowl, in order to 

 distinguish the capucbon or cowl from the hood or chaperon) attached 

 to it was then brought up over the bead, and the opening on the chest 

 covered by a square piece, through which wen piss ml straps, that 

 fttmH behind, hanging down with towelled terminations, as did also 

 the strap which drew the hood, or capuchon, as it was called, tight 

 round the forehead. This is evident in several figures in the Bayeux 

 tapectry; but the manner in whieh the armour was put on and 

 fastened is best shown where William is arming Harold. The Duke of 

 Normandy is then represented as placing the helmet on the head of 

 the Saxon tmrl with bis left hand, while his right is busied making 

 tight a strap, which is drawn through the rings on the breast of 

 the Utter. No examples of such shaped armour in England occur 

 previously or in any subsequent reign ; but it appears to have been 



introduced into Ireland, and worn in that country, as has been above 

 observed, as late a* the time of Edward III.; nor docs any distin- 

 guishing name seem to have been applied to it : hence I conclude that 

 It is what Wace calls the haubergeon, in his description of the 

 appearance at the battle of Hastings of Bishop Odo, the conip 

 half-brother." The legs of the figures in the tapestry are, generally 

 speaking, bound with Innds of different colours, rising out of the shoe 

 in the ancient Saxon manner; Imt in some instances, and wh> 

 hauberk is worn, they appear covered with mail to the ankles. Sn. -li, 

 however, is the case only with the most distinguished characters, as 

 Willi.iin, Odo, Eustace, Ac. This covering for the legs, according to 

 William of Molmesbury, was called liriite or hate ; whence Hoi 

 Normandy being rather short-legged, we are told l>y Ordericua Yitalis, 

 his contemporary, was often called by his father Curt-hose. The 

 shield, as depicted in the tapestry, and introduced by the Normans, 

 was of a very peculiar fonu. It has been called heater-shield .iu.| 

 kite-shield by modern antiquaries, from its supposed rexemblun. , t<> 

 those familiar objects ; but by the Normans themselves it was nu Ten- 

 termed MCM, from the Latin, trutum. While in the tapestry most of 

 the Saxon shields ore represented round or oval, with a central boss, 

 oa in the illuminations of that people, there is no instance of a V > in m 

 with any other than the long kite-shaped shield. These shields were 

 hung on the arm by an inner strap, which left the hand free, and gave 

 them a great advantage over the Saxons by whom the shield w.is 

 grasped by the bond and held straight forward ; so that to wield the 

 heavy double-handed battle-axe, they were forced to relmqui>h the 

 shield. 



The armour of the reign of William Kufus remained precisely the 

 aame as in that of the Conqueror; and we have no new j-pci-l- 

 any part, except the cliajxUe dtfrr. This appears on the seal of Hul'u-. 

 and resembles a Tartar cap, being a cone which projects beyond the 

 head. 



The great seal of Henry I. represents that king in flat-ringed armour. 

 Other specimens of his time occur in the enamelled copper of Geoffrey 

 I'lautogenet, engraved by Stothard, and described by John of Mar- 

 moustier, and in a representation of similar date, engraved by Strutt, 

 in his ' Dresses and Habits of the People of England/ from a manu- 

 script in the possession of the late Francis Douce, Esq. 



In the reign of Stephen, what is called tegulated armour appears to 

 have prevailed, which consisted of several little plates, covering each 

 other in the manner of tiles, and sown upon a hauberk, without sleeves 

 or hood. The seal of Richard Fitzhngh, Earl of Chester, engraved in 

 the ' Vetusta Monuinenta,' of the Society of Antiquaries, affords a fine 

 specimen of this kind of hauberk. The nasal of the helmet appears to 

 have been disused toward the close of this reign ; though, upon his 

 great seal, Stephen is represented with it. 



Henry II. is represented upon his great seal in a flat-ringed hauberk, 

 wearing a conical helmet without a nasal. The flat rings, however, 

 gave way soon after the commencement of his reign, and the hauberk 

 with rings set edgewise came into general fashion. The shape of the 

 shield became somewhat shortened, and often more angular ou each 

 side at the top. 



Richard I., in his first seal, appears in a hauberk of rings set 

 edgewise, from under which falls the drajKry of his tunic ; in the 

 second seal he has the same without drapery: in Inith he is repre- 

 sented with chausses; in the first, wearing a couie.-il helmet, Imt 

 with its apex somewhat rounded ; in the second with a cylindrical one, 

 surmounted by the planta-{tenitta (or broom-plant) in reference to his 

 name, and having an aventaille or plate to protect the face. 



The great seal of John affords the first example of an English king 

 wearing a surcoat; it is put over a hauberk of rings set edgewise. 

 Surooats an supposed to have originated with the crusaders, for Hie 

 purpose- of distinguishing the many different nations serving under 

 the banner of the cross, and to throw a veil over the iron armour, so 

 apt to heat excessively when exposed to the direct rays of the sun. 

 Besides the surcoat the hoqueton and the gambeson were military 

 garments in great esteem during this reign. They were both padded, 

 the latter stuffed with wool in buckskin, the first in leather, stuffed 

 with cotton. Thus, in a wardrobe account dated in 1212, we find a 

 pound cif cotton was expended in stuffing an aketon belonging to King 

 John, which cost twelve pence, and the quilting of the same was charged 

 at twelve pence more. John is represented with a cylindrical helmet, 

 but without any covering over his face. The monument in the Temple 

 church ascribed to Geoffrey de Mognaville, or Mandeville, which appears 

 to be about this period, has one very similar, but with a tuutal and 

 cheek-pieces. A helmet of this time, " of a very cumbrous and 

 inelegant form, and which was only worn in actual combat, when it 

 was placed over the coif-de-mailles and chapel-de-fer (A :/!., mail hood 

 and iron skull-cap), and rested on the shoulders," wan found a few 

 years ago in digging among the ruins of Eynsford Castle, Kent, and is 

 now in the collection of the Earl of Warwick. (Plauche'.) 



Henry III.'s great seals afford us the earliest specimen of the 

 ottrraget de pourpuintcrir, which came more into fashion towards the 

 Utter part of his reign. His hauberk and chausscs are of this padded 

 work, stitched. On his first seal his helmet is represented as with the 

 visor or aperture for sight, not in the aventaille, Imt in the helmet 

 iUelf, while the Utter has merely perforations for the breath, and i 

 therefore fixed at the lower part. His second seal exhibits him in a 



